1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to chess board games and in particular to an attempt at improving on the most popular version of the conventional classic chess game. The classic Chess game is world known, well defined and well documented game. The rules of the game and various tournament rules are controlled and sponsored by the FIDE World organization. I refer the background information requirement to the wealth of information available about the classical game worldwide. I will just quote a few small excerpts from those sources:
Chess is a scientific game and its literature ought to be placed on the basis of the strictest truthfulness, which is the foundation of all scientific research.—W Steinitz
A team of British archaeologists has unearthed evidence suggesting that Europeans were playing chess as early as the sixth century. Until now chess historians had agreed that the game only became popular with the European elite during the 12th Century, 700 years after it was invented in China, India or ancient Persia. An ivory chess piece, excavated at a Byzantine palace in what is now southern Albania, is more than 500 years older than any previously discovered.
From its obscure origins in the Orient to the frontiers of artificial intelligence, chess has a rich history, filled with fascinating, sometimes quirky personalities.
Chess, an ancient game, evolved through centuries. It spanned over multitude of cultures both Eastern and Western. It is truly an international and global game.
2. Prior Art
An extensive analysis of the game, history of the game, references and prior art is disclosed within the U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,334 and I am referring to that with this statement as a very useful background I also used while describing my invention.
In addition to that I am presenting bellow my comments on the two patents that I found to be the most relevant to my invention:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,334, Duke, Nov. 25, 1997: introduces a game that is played on ten by eight square board with the board orientation opposite to the standard established by FIDE for classical game. It introduces a new type of pieces named falcon which moves by three squares in all directions. This is a very interesting attempt at solving the problem of enhancing the game but I don't find the new piece intuitive enough and to be in sync with the simplicity of the rules and the spirit of the classical game.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,582, Ritter, Jun. 6, 1995: introduces a game that is played on large octagonal board, one-hundred-thirty-six squares. This game also introduces a new type of piece named viceroy that moves like a checker in the game of checkers. This is also a very interesting attempt in solving the problem but I think that the introduced changes as a whole move the game too far from the classic original and bring an entirely new balance to the game. This is more of an entirely new game than an extension of the old one.
Perceived Advantages of Chess 100 Invention
With introduction of ChessQuire/Chess 100 the classical game was significantly expanded. The consequence of the new larger board and the added pieces is a new game that has exponentially more possibilities than the classical game.
However, in contrast to the magnitude of the impact they cause, the introduced changes in respect to the classical game are small, simple, intuitive and in sync with the classical game. There is no learning curve in adapting the ChessQuire/Chess100 game. Any chess player with basic understanding of the classical game can start playing the game right away. No significantly new concepts were introduced. Even though it shall take years to fully understand the impact of the introduced changes on the playing strategies of the new game, the well understood principles learned through centuries of playing the classical game will be still relevant. I consider this a major strength of this innovation. ChessQuire/Chess100 is truly the next development step of the original game that I was searching for.